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The Danger Of Getting What You’ve Always Wanted

There should be celebration in getting what you’ve always wanted, shouldn’t there? You’ve outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed both the odds against and the people around you and so . . . voila!

You have that thing you’ve always wanted.

Could be the promotion, the house, the championship, the notoriety, or even the congregation humming on all eight cylinders.

And that’s where you and me and all of us are at our most vulnerable.

I recently had a fairly major role (for me) as a spokesperson for a segment within Methodism. I think I’ve got things to say, an ability to say them fairly well, and it was a real honor to be asked to represent my friends and allies. And so I did. It’s wasn’t everything I’ve ever wanted . . . but it was something.

Anyway, the aftermath of the event? I got sick. Sick-in-the-bed as they used to say in Monroe. Bronchitis, trending towards pneumonia — who gets that in June? — requiring a couple of days at home and a couple of steroidal / antiobiotic shots in the . . . how can I say this? . . . hip!

Getting so sick so quickly seems to me like a direct response to the intensity/letdown dynamic of that Methodist event.

It simply serves as another reminder that we are more vulnerable in the aftermath of success than we are in the midst of failure. Getting what you’ve always wanted is great. And it is dangerous.

It’s been that way for a long time. What did the serpent promise the man and the woman? “Then you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”